This post has its beginnings, the photograph of a youngish Carl 'Charles' Webb. This image is taken from the larger family and friends group photograph published on the ABC News platform in 2022.I wondered at the time how a young man from regional Victoria could get such blond hair especially when the earlier image of him in a soccer team photograph showed his hair to be a darker colour?
The immediate thought was a result of spending many hours in bright sunlight. Either that or just maybe he had been at sea, as a merchant seaman perhaps. That led to a search of records for merchant seamen and that in turn led me to the crew list for the SS Golden Sun where I found an Able seaman in 1931 by the name of Carl Webb on the crew list, his date of birth was similar but his height was just 5 feet 8 inches.
I undertook extensive research with numerous communications with US authorities and archives. The result was negative.
Some historical background to this information. In the 1920s which, if proven correct, was when Carl or Charles went to sea, the press was filled with stories and accounts of young men who ran away or went to sea, a great adventure. The press was not he only influencing factor, the airwaves were filled with sea shanties as gramophone recordings were plentiful. Going to sea was a definite 'thing' in those years. A search of TROVE using the search term 'ran away to sea' is all it took to confirm a suspicion.
Carl Webb or Charles Webb?
Recently, on reviewing the Carl Webb story, it struck me that I should have also been searching for a 'Charles' Webb, moreover, to be totally objective, the dates I should be searching should include dates after 1948.
Within 20 minutes I came across pages of references to a seaman called 'Charles Webb'. So many in fact that it quickly became obvious that I was more than likely dealing with several different people of that same name and, as it happens of similar birth dates.
I needed a differentiation, I needed to break that long list by qualifying the entries even further. The simplest way was to look for the names of crewmen who were not registered as American citizens but had their records listed as British or English citizens. In those years, Australians were issued British passports and regarded as British citizens.
Charles Webb a British citizen yielded several results and he had the same year of birth.
Significantly, some of those instances were for voyages that occurred after 1948.
Here are some of the crew lists recently found in rough date order, you will be able to view the progress from beginnings as a pantry hand to an OS (Ordinary Seaman), AB (Able Seaman), and QM, (Quarter Master)
1. This first Crew List dated 1949 is interesting firstly because it is dated 1949, secondly because it arrived in NY from Venezuela and thirdly because the Charles Webb listed is recorded as being German:
2. This next list contains the name Charles Webb and is dated 1949 but Charles is noted as a 'failed to show ' seaman:
3. Dated 1947, a key year, this note is a list of the known races allowed to be employed on US-registered ships. Note that Australia is not included:
4. Next, the Crewlist of the ship CARMANIA, the interesting feature of this list is that it contains Charles Webb's Seamans Identification card number: 1047141. He is marked down as British. Uncertain about his position though. He was in the right age bracket, his height was 5 feet 8 inches. Strangely, many of the Charles Webb records I have looked at have the height listed between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 8.5 inches. The year is 1929.
I will upload more later today time permitting.
Does that mean that our Carl 'Charles' Webb took off and went to sea around 1921-22 at the tender age of 16 or so? At this stage, it is a possibility but not a probability.
